To save a mockingbird

I don't like to go this long between posts. Because, as I've mentioned, this is my only recorded memory of these days that seem so prosaic, but which, in reality, are rich with details I will long to recall at some point.

The husband went outside one morning to water the lawn, and reported a baby bird sighting. I went out to investigate, and discovered two mockingbird fledglings hopping about, and a very anxious set of mockingbird parents running interference with some meddling blackbirds. We discovered the nest, which had been upset by something. There was one dead fledgling in the limbs of the tree, and another in the grass just below. (at which point I am reminded why I dislike cats. I KNOW it's what they were made to do or whatever, it just OFFENDS me. Plus, they make me sneeze something horrible) and I understood why the parents were so frantic. So I spent the morning making around 25 trips outside to check on the fledglings while my human children probably played with the stove and the knives and washed their hands in the potty maybe. Who knows. Anyway, one little fledgling stayed huddled next to the fence and was very well camouflaged. The other little fellow was much more bold--he insisted on hopping down the sidewalk and stopping to rest in full view of predators. The internet told me that I should put on a pair of gloves and get those babies back in their nest. So, I did. They both got very nervous and pooped on my glove and also my foot. But I got them back in there. With an audience that included the husband, Harper, and some neighbors. They applauded, I felt very noble. Then I came back a few minutes later and the bold little guy had already found his way back out of the nest and was hopping back down the sidewalk again. I sighed. Though he did look really cute flexing his wings and hopping around. (It reminded me of this post)  I took a picture as he was tattling to his mom: "Mommy! I pooped on her just like you told me to and she still won't leave me alone! Plus, can
I have a snack, please?"

In honor of all of our real life bird interactions, I though I'd list some books about birds that we've enjoyed lately:

Song of the Swallows by Leo Politi

Nothing Like a Puffin by Sue Soltis, ill. Bob Kolar

Duck on a Bike by David Shannon

Step Gently Out by Helen Frost and Rick Leider (actually about insects, but it's a great reminder that the quieter we are outside, the more likely we are to see animals and bugs and other neat things)

Play With Me by Marie Hall Etts (a very sweet book with rudimentary but delightful illustrations that teaches children the benefit of being still and quiet outside)

More by I.C. Springman, ill. Brian Lies (I liked this one better before I read the author bio in the back: "I.C. Springman is a small-house person in a McMansion-loving world. She lives as simply as possible with one husband, three dogs, and too many books somewhere down South. More was written for her grandsons with the hope that one day there will be enough for all." Oh BROTHER. Subtle. I wonder if her grandsons' parents got the message?? And the illustrator should definitely get top billing on this one, because there are only around a dozen words in it. The illustrations are fantastic, however.)

In the Meadow by Yukiko Kato, ill. Komako Sato (few words, lovely illustrations, no pedantic author bio)

Hummingbird Nest: a Journal of Poems by Kristine O'Connell George, ill. Barry Moser

We went to the Miller Outdoor Theater for a free concert for kids this week, even though it was 107 degrees. We sat on the front row and found, to our tremendous delight, that the stage at the Miller Outdoor is AIR-CONDITIONED! So we were able to enjoy the cool air and also the Puccini as they wafted from the stage.

Then we went swimming twice. Harper is making huge strides (laps? strokes?) in the pool. My theory that we just needed to swim more in order to learn how to swim seems to be a valid one. This week she perfected a handstand, an underwater flip (forwards and backwards) and also a rather flailing backstroke. She is (to the point of being obnoxiously) pleased with her accomplishments, and we are working on being happy without boasting, and also being happy in our own accomplishments without needing to disparage the accomplishments of our siblings. She likes to give Hudson backhanded compliments that are something like, "Yes Hudson, you DID do a great job putting your face in the water WHILE wearing your flotation device." I did let Hudson take off his flotation device some this week and he is coming along nicely as well.

On Thursday we went to the Museum of Fine Arts and did a free children's event in the European galleries and also sketched a little. Harper, not surprisingly, chose to sketch a statue of an ibis. Hudson thought he wanted to sketch the army man with the silly gray wig and the sword, then changed his mind and decided instead to try the ibis, then realized it was too hard and that he was never going to try to draw anything ever again because he can't draw it and it looks terrible and he never wants to come back to the museum ever. Helena, meanwhile, was carrying around her little portable stool that the volunteers were handing out to all the children. Instead of unfolding it in front of a painting and sitting nicely while sketching, she was hanging it from her shoulder while practicing pirouettes while getting a bit too close for comfort to the display pillars containing the priceless 3,000 year old Egyptian artifacts. I would have liked to visit more with Mrs. S and Mrs. R (and also Mrs. O and Mrs. R) but I didn't really dare without risking a portable stool or maybe a freshly sharpened colored pencil going right through the Rembrandt self-portrait. That would be a fun phone call to have to make to the husband, would it not?

And now it is Saturday and it is 2 pm and raining and I am still in my pajamas. The two big kids went with the daddy this morning and did a little bird watching at a nearby estuary, while Helena and I stayed home and I finally updated our book list and she put on costumes and did some "buh-way.":

dog days

Is today this first day of summer? I think it might be. It actually begins in late February here, so by the time it actually happens, it seems like it should be fall already.

I took the dog for a little walk last night because it had been raining all day which makes her reluctant to step out into the backyard because of her aforementioned expectation that some sort of manservant is supposed to toss down his cloak over the wet blades of grass so she can step upon it so as not to get her itty bitty (stray dog of indiscriminate breed) paws the least bit damp. When Jeeves is otherwise engaged and this doesn't happen, she then assumes she has permission to relieve herself inside the house on the new carpet. So on our walk I noticed a small egg (intact) under a water oak sapling. I didn't see the nest, but I did see a single feather right next to the egg. Which was ominous. Then a few feet down the sidewalk were the tattered remains of the mama bird. I felt more melancholy than is probably normal, then hummed a few bars of "His Eye is on the Sparrow" to remind me of the significance of these things, and that maybe it's okay to feel melancholy. Maybe it's even divine to feel melancholy about these tiny tragedies which serve to remind us that we weren't made for this place. Although it wasn't actually a sparrow. It was a mockingbird. So obviously whatever got the mama bird has never read Harper Lee.

 We don't seem to have any cardinals or robins here at the new place. Perhaps they are the inside-the-loopers of the Houston bird world.  Here we have lots of mockingbirds and sandpipers and herons and hawks. Walking home from the pool today, a new friend was telling me she has seen a couple of rats running around the decorative lake near the pool. Which probably explains the hawks. And is also disgusting.

Hudson is in full Star Wars obsession mode. He has watched bits and pieces of the older movies with the husband as he's been able to record them from random cable channels. The husband now tells me we really need to buy a Blue-ray player so that we can buy all of the movies, to which I responded something like "Don't you realize you are playing right into THEIR insidious little game??" THEY, of course being the titans of technology who finally forced me to buy my first VCR circa 1993, and then have thrown it back into my face every couple of years by inventing some new technology that makes me seem positively antediluvian if I don't have it. Anyway, Hudson was oddly obsessed with Star Wars before he had even seen a moment of the movies (can anyone explain this phenomenon to me?) and now his ardor is consuming. Anytime there is a pause in conversation or activity, he will posit some variation of the following questions:

1.Mommy, why are light sabers called light sabers?
2.Mommy, who is your least favorite Star Wars character?
3. Mommy, who is your second least favorite Star Wars character?
4. Mommy, who is your third least favorite Star Wars character?
5. Mommy, WHY does Darth Vader choose to become bad?

The husband came home from Kroger with this mask yesterday, and Hudson takes it very seriously. Harper put together this whole costume (Batman cape, Ninja jumpsuit, cowboy boots) and Hudson came stalking slowly down the stairs, after first sending Harper down to make sure Helena was asleep so he didn't scare her with his Fierce and Terrible Visage. He likes to think of himself as Luke (and has even asked me to call him Luke a few times) so he made sure to clarify, before he donned the mask, that in the end, Darth Vader chooses the right thing.

Helena has lately been mixing up her tenses. She'll say, "When I was seven, I saw a spider under the table and it is going to EAT ME UP!" and it drives the other two CRAZY. They will say, "Helena NO you have never been SEVEN and you will not be SEVEN for FOUR ENTIRE YEARS and besides that, spiders do NOT eat people." Then Helena will say something like, "Well, when I was seven, I had a monster, and it got you and it is going to FROW YOU IN THE TRASH!" and that is also received very well.

Speaking of spiders, Harper is on the last couple of chapters of Charlotte's Web and I think she has realized what's coming. She was giving me a summary of what is happening and she said, haltingly, "I think Charlotte is going to die," and I gently confirmed her suspicion. I don't think she is quite as emotionally involved as her mother, so she'll probably be okay.

My parents were here this weekend to see the new house and babysit. It was a great feeling to be able to show them to an actual room with an actual bed for them to sleep on instead of asking my 75 year old dad to sleep on the floor on an air mattress that slowly deflates in the night. Also my brother came with his family and we celebrated my niece's birthday and Father's Day and it was a delight.

Learning to fly

I think I mentioned we are reading E.B. White's The Trumpet of the Swan out loud at bedtime, and I am loving it. The father swan (called a 'cob' which was new information to me) is delightfully long-winded and very proud of his cygnets. He is given to long speeches about the How-tos of Flight and other things that are better shown and not told. I identify with him to an uncomfortable degree.

We had a small tragedy here a few nights ago. The husband had put on an episode of "Man vs. Wild" while he got dinner ready (I was on my way to my summer Bible study) and it was a highlights show in which Bear Grylls ate many, many disturbing things. As I came in to say my good-byes, I noticed that Hudson was waving his wooden knife in front of his face. I also noticed that he looked like he was fighting back tears. Then I looked at the t.v. and saw that Bear was putting a very adorable, very dead tortoise on a fire. To cook it. In order To EAT it. The reason Hudson was waving his wooden knife in front of his face is because he was trying to UNSEE the tragedy that was transpiring. His hero had killed and was about to eat his Very Favorite Animal in the Entire World. He ended up hiding under his covers while crying with all of this stuffed turtles (they are LEGION) under there with him, claiming that he wasn't crying about the turtles, but that he had sustained a very painful wound on his way up the stairs. I think it was officially the moment that Bear Grylls became Dead to Hudson (formerly Hudson Bear Grylls). I asked the husband if perhaps he had taken the opportunity to have a chat with him about how sometimes our heroes do things that we find disappointing, but he had not.

I forgot to mention that Harper got a Swiss Army knife for her birthday, and also some sort of utility knife. When she was around 5, we had seen a pink one at REI and she said she wanted it and I said something careless like, "Oh, maybe when you are seven," and of course she remembered the exact conversation for two entire years and brought it up every couple of months. I am just thankful that she did not remember that she also wanted a set of bagpipes when she turned seven. That might have been the final one of my nerves to go. Ping!

Today I was feeling a little sorry for myself because several of our dear friends are at VBS at our old church. I had decided not to go because of the drive (35 minutes without traffic, much more with) but then on Friday I decided that I really wanted to have the kids go, only it was too late to sign up. So, we got up and went to the library, and this happened for a couple of hours when we got home:

(Hudson would want me to note that he has his light saber, his sling shot, and his knife on his belt. And his watergun in hand. Because You Never Know when Danger Could Strike, perhaps even when one is reading a book about sparrows or hermit crabs.)

Also, we completely avoided television the entire day AND the computers were down at the library, which made me happy (I have a theory that the librarians secretly shut the internet down every so often just to make people realize that the library is FULL OF BOOKS FOR GOODNESS SAKES GET OFF THE COMPUTERS AND READ!!) (Also, there were four disappointed, but still cheery, Mormon missionaries hanging out in the lobby in their white shirts and ties.I saw them last time as well. In the computer lab. Should I report them??)

Helena played for a good hour with the Playmobil swimming pool:while Harper read the first five chapters of Charlotte's Web and the first three chapters of The Courage of Sarah Noble. She also read Stuart Little all by herself last week.

 Then, after dinner, I decided to say yes even though I really wanted to say no, and Helena sprayed the hose with abandon while Harper took some pictures with my camera. "I took some of the sunset, Mommy!" she told me. In your head, you should definitely hear Tevye singing "Swiftly fly the years.."

Having fun in the sun (with a gun) at Noah's Ark

I've been wanting to mention that every once in a while, when I go get Helena up from her nap or her night's sleep, she will have taken off her Raggedy Ann's pantaloons and apron and she will have put them on herself. It's funny, trust me. We finally moved her out of the crib into a toddler bed when we moved, and it is going fine, except for the fact that she wakes up significantly earlier, gets out of her bed, and comes to ours. Usually around 6:45, when she used to stay in the crib until around 8 :30.

What else is going on here? A couple of boxes still stashed here and there, but for the most part, we are unpacked. We can get both cars in the garage, but it is TIGHT. To take the trash out, I have to empty my body of all air and do a Cirque du Soleil move to keep from amputating my lower leg on the minivan license plate, but we can get both cars in there. Anyway, I even have shower curtains now, including a new one I got at Target that has birds on it: We have found the best library (sadly, it is not the closest library) and, after some initial anxiety, I have realized how to request books online (though, after requesting about 30, I discovered the limit was 10. Which elicited a minor profanity from moi). I think I might do a book post this week because it has been awhile and we have read some good ones lately. The big kids and I have been reading E.B. White's Trumpet of the Swan aloud at bedtime and we are all enjoying it. We have walked down to the pool 3 times and it's only a little stressful with three kids who can't really swim (because of the aforementioned Lack of Lessons). I'm hoping they'll learn by the end of the summer. Harper is pretty close, though, as with most things, her confidence exceeds her actual ability.

 We want to a Sugar Land Skeeters game: Sometimes, the suburbs have their own minor league baseball teams! For my non-American readers, a 'skeeter' is Texan for 'mosquito' and Helena was ENAMORED with the fleecy mascot and could not focus on the game until she had give him a big hug (while the husband shuddered and wished he could bathe her in Purell).

 Today we went to a local church which, for a sizable fee, will let you play on their Noah's Ark splashpad/swimming pool. The kids had a fantastic time. At one point, my little man friends Tram and Dex were talking to me and we made up a little rap that celebrated all the fun they were having with their (water) guns at Noah's Ark. They stared at me with dazed expressions, which made me realize that if you don't have a gangsta for a mama maybe the raps are a little startling. I'm pretty sure Mrs. Noah probably made up a similar little something to sing with Shem, Ham and Japheth.

The husband has been spending MUY tiempo on the yard. We still have the motor-less mower, but he bought a pretty fancy weed-eater to prove we are Legit. The grass seems to be doing well, and the free trees are working hard to someday make shade in the backyard. I am OVERJOYED to report that we seem to have ZERO roaches. We have had to deal with two extremely robust spiders in the house (and many small ones), some fire ants,  and the neighbors have been warning us about the fact that legions of MICE seem to disregard the fact that we have paved their paradise and put up our houses. That freaks me out less than roaches, which I realize is WEIRD. I don't invite mice, mind you, but at least they are mammalian.

Okay then.